The Wild Blog in the West

It's turned into musical movie month, hasn't it?  Beware of spoilers! If Into the Woods  isn't the most soul-stirring musical, it is still well made and highly entertaining.  Written by Stephen Sondheim and premiering on Broadway in 1987, it combines several classic fairytales and centers them around a semi-original tale involving a baker and his wife.  The movie version is directed by Rob Marshall (of Chicago  fame) and contains a star-studded cast, including Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Emily Blunt, and Anna Kendrick. Plot Synopsis The Baker and his wife live a good life, except that they cannot have children.  One day, they learn from their neighbor, a witch, that their house has been cursed because the Baker's father once stole items from the witch's garden, including magical beans.  In addition to taking the Baker's parents' second-born (a girl), the witch proclaimed that his house would remain barren unless the Baker and his wife were able ...

After reading the reviews, I was prepared for the movie to be painfully awful to sit through.  Instead, I found it to be not-so-bad.  At times, it captured the spirit of Annie and even exceeded some aspects of the 1982 musical.  But in the end, its strengths couldn't overcome its weaknesses, putting the updated Annie on the Wrong list. I've already given an overview of Annie 's history and the basic plot line.  It doesn't really change in this version, except that now Annie is one of several foster kids being "raised" by Colleen Hannigan, a drunk and bitter never-was backup singer.  Daddy Warbucks is now Will Stacks, a self-made cell phone millionaire who is running for mayor of New York City.  After Stacks rescues Annie from being hit by a truck, his campaign manager realizes that it boosted his popularity, and before long she is living in his penthouse apartment. Will Smith got the idea of making an updated version of Annie  as a vehicle for h...

I decided to watch this version of Annie as a refresher in case I felt like seeing the new one due out this month.  (I'm wavering: on the one hand, Quevenzhane Wallis was adorable in Beasts of the Southern Wild , but on the other hand, clips of Cameron Diaz as Miss Hannigan were disturbing.) When I was little, I adored Annie .  Adored it.  Some of my earliest drawings were of blank-eyed, curly-haired Annie from the comics and her pointy-eared canine friend, Sandy.  I was Annie for Halloween.  I listened to and sang all of the songs all the time for what seemed like two years. Then when I watched it again a few years ago?  Eh.  Looking back, I think what really drew me to Annie was aspiration.  Who wouldn't want to be a plucky orphan living in luxury with her adoring "Daddy" Warbucks?  Then there were the songs, the colors, those dance numbers.  In many ways, Annie  was an antecedent to Punky Brewster , which premiered a few ...

I generally keep this blog separate from my role as owner/administrator of www.thepaperpusher.net , the Paperpusher Message Board, or PPMB.  However, since the board has been down due to frustrating tech issues that we are working to resolve, it struck me that some people might come to this address for information.  While I won't be updating here, I urge people to check out my @PaperpusherMB Twitter account, which provides up-to-date information about the attempts to bring the website back up.  Hopefully it won't be long, but thanks for your patience.

It would have been an enormous task to focus on The Addams Family  as a whole, as it includes a panel of cartoons first published in 1938, a successful television series (1964-1966), at least one animated series (1973-1975) and two movies, the second of which, Addams Family Values , came out in 1993.  I chose the second movie not only because it's a favorite and because it's easier than focusing on the entire canon, but also because it is one of the rare examples of introversion being  celebrated . The "creepy and kooky" Addams family consists of father Gomez, mother Morticia, Grandmama, Uncle Fester, Cousin Itt, Lurch the butler, Thing, and Pugsley and Wednesday.  The Addams family embraces every force that society has taught us to fear: darkness, werewolves, witches, blood, and death.  Moreover, they do so in an undeniably cheerful way, especially Gomez.  They would make wonderful friends if not for the constant fear that they could be plotting your d...

Okay, it was finally available On Demand, so I watched it.  My impression was the same as when I saw the stage musical: Eh. Though at least Jersey Boys the stage musical had color, an infectious energy, and a lot of songs from the Four Seasons and Frankie Valli catalogue.  At times, it gave hints of attempting to be more serious, but then was like, "Nah!  Time for the next hit number!"  The movie (directed by Clint Eastwood), by contrast, tries to be dramatic and meaningful, but ends up flat. Plot Synopsis For large stretches, Jersey Boys seems to think it's Backbeat , the gritty story of an up-and-coming band, only in this case, a band that is far less musically interesting and consequential.   Jersey Boys follows the formation and breakup of the Four Seasons in the 50s and 60s, a band consisting of Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi, Bob Gaudio, and Frankie Valli, aka "the Special One."  Tommy, Nick, and Frankie are blue collar Italian boys living in ...

Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news! My novel has finally reached a milestone: 120,000 words. You can see my efforts documented here . With the holidays approaching, I'm not sure whether I'll start querying agents now, or wait until the beginning of next year.  I'm leaning toward the latter. One reason is because in other breaking news.............. I've begun writing the sequel! Maybe that sounds too soon, but when you've been waiting for over a year to write it, believe me, it's really not.  Oh sweet, sweet new pages, and just in time for National Novel Writing Month, too. So anyway, just wanted to give you that update.  I will be back with a normal one next time.

Cute, plucky kid who went through some mighty  disturbing shit.   When I was a kid, for one year, I had a stalker.  I don't know how or why, just that an older man became interested in me and would call my house on a semi-regular basis.  When he got me on the phone, he would ask me questions in a very creepy voice that I still remember to this day.  He claimed to be a friend of my father's, yet when I gave the phone to my dad, he would inevitably get a dial tone.  One day it started and then one day, just as mysteriously, it stopped. And I didn't think about it again for years. Until recently, when I stopped to think just how fucked up that was.  Where were my parents?  I never answered the phone, so how did they just decide it was okay for an adult male to speak to their child?  My mom claims that she doesn't recall that sequence of events at all.  I recall as a kid feeling that something was wrong, but I couldn't understan...

So last Saturday, I had what might be considered my first promotional event. Saturday night marked the end of a full week's events in the San Francisco Bay Area known as LitQuake .  LitQuake is some sort of harvest festival for people who love to read.  I really don't know how else to describe it.  It started with a an official launch party on Friday the 10th, then showcased reading and writing events all over the Bay Area.  The piece de resistance was LitCrawl , a 3.5-hour event in San Francisco that was capped with a closing party. LitCrawl occurred in phases.  Phase One lasted from 6 to 7 pm.  Phase Two lasted from 7:15 to 8:15 pm.  Phase Three lasted from 8:30 to 9:30 pm.  My reading was part of Phase Three.  Each Phase took place in two dozen different San Francisco venues, mainly along Valencia Street between 16th and Mission and 21st and Mission.   How did I volunteer to be part of such a massive event?  Mainly by a...

Once again, with new job and lots of writing stuff going on, I haven't had time to do a lot of updating.  Next week I will be taking part in the San Francisco Lit Crawl , which I will blog about afterward, and I have various other posts in progress.  One thing I'm going to do not this month, but when it finally concludes (sniff!) is a revisiting of my The Legend of Korra post , to give my expanded thoughts not only on the series, but on the entire Avatar  universe as a whole (including Avatar: The Last Airbender ).  In the meantime, enjoy this trailer from The Legend of Korra , Season Four.

I had no special reason for posting this, except that I decided this past weekend to rewatch the Les Miserables  movie, having not watched it for a while.  I was curious to see whether my impressions of it have changed. Overall, while I'm not as wildly over the moon about the Les Miz  movie as when it premiered, I still find it to be a worthwhile production.  Several have criticized Tom Hooper for failing to go larger than life with it, like in the stage production, with a barricade the length of a football field.  However, I think his choice to make it gritty and closer to the source material is commendable.  It would have been easy to follow the blueprint of the glossy costume musical, where the peasants' clothes glow brightly, there is not a speck of mud on the ground, and the players mime along to lyrics during elaborate dance numbers.  Hooper made some notable deviations, and they mostly paid off.  If his choices aren't better valued, it ...

For about its first five seasons, Roseanne  (1988-1997) was a revelation.  Those put off by Roseanne Barr's abrasive personality missed one of the few television shows (let alone sitcoms) to portray family and the working class in a realistic manner. You just didn't see shows like this on the air.  Its fellow sitcoms included The Cosby Show  and Growing Pains , both shows involving well-to-do families with large, impossibly neat houses.  Whereas Roseanne and Dan Conner's house looked like the house you might have : an old, faded afghan covering a worn-out couch; magazines strewn over the coffee table; odds and ends crowding a desk in the background. And their family seemed like one you (or *cough* at least I) might have as well.  Not one where the kids were endlessly subservient to, and stupider than, the parents, like on The Cosby Show .  Becky and Darlene fought with their parents, sometimes viciously.  They fought with each other the same...